HELEN'S EXPERIENCE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8962, 2 May 1891, Page 2

HELEN'S EXPERIENCE.

■ « Before she wait eighteen Helen Tyron married for lov. At twenty-five she found herself bankrupt of everything. Sheliv«d, and with the stubborn tenacity of her nature she braced herself to endure existence, but she neithor hoped nor feared anything. She ateand drank and slept, tho meohanical routine of the days repeated itself, bnt she had come to a dead stop. She had lost all courage, oil failh ; a bare, blank wall faoed her. There was nothing more to be enjoyed ror suffered. She had had everything and lost everything. It was just then that in a sohool vacation she visited a friend in one of t'la shadiest and oldest and steadiest of Connecticut villages. While she was in the house there cane out of the vague south-west a young man that claimed blood relationship with the family. It was just in the days when Bret Earto's heroes stood foremost in tho ranks of popularity. Theinborn rebellion against conventionalities in Helen's blood oaupht eagerly at the picturesque freedom and wlldnesß of these oharaoterjzations. She could not realise that' one redeeming trait may not suffice to make a whole life tolorable. Payne Morse was as handsome in his blonde way as a young demigod. He bad the slow, soft spoeoli of tho plainsman ; he aworo no oaths, In hor presence at least; ho conformed to , the requirements of a oommunity to which a revolver and a lariat rope were ' alike u i' called for and outlandish, with ' a good-natured toleration that bad in Helen's eyes immense piquancy and magnanimity. Then he rodo like a centaur., and the accomplishment was so novel in that oorner of the hills that it seemed almoßt like something unlawful tad uncodly. Somebody In a wild fit of speculation had shipped c»st & trainload of mustangs, with tho illuaivo hopo ibat they might bo broken for use among the qu»rlz ledges. They kicked, thoy booked, thty sat on their haunches and sqiiealtd their wnng-i aloud in every variation of the equine tongue, and at last Payno M»rse was appealed to as being only a little less savage than the tuuaUfigi*, to Bco if he could do anythiug with them. fie had found himself able, and apparently enjoyed the work, His fearless riding, his merciless mastership of the untamed brutes completed tho conquest of Helen's fancy. Tbi« was in leafy June : In September she went baok to sohool. A month lat*r she left the reoltation room ono day, put on her hat, walkod out of tho houso and to the railroad station. In the next city Payne Moreo awaited her. They were married within tho hour, and beforo sunset they told the story in the Tyron sitting room. " Yon «re aware, sir," Mr Tyron said, " that this obild is a minor—by tho law I could take her from you." ' ' But you will not P " The question was half assertion. " No, I shall not. She has ohosen : ' »he must learn life in her own way : I Khali try and make no difference between her and the others— and may the Lord havo meroy on. you both,' 1 he added, half under his breath. For a month the two stayed under the Louie roof. Helen's mother put down intuition and instinct with a strong kind, magnified the superficial charms of the man, and was able at last to say : "It was irregular— improper— wrong, bat we can't help liking him." Then Helen took the few thousands of dollars, for which by right ahe should have waited till she had roaebed her Majority, and went with bor husband into the then half-savage depths of tho Colorado cattle ranges. For four years her letters camo tcrularly. From the very first tlier« had been little of personal record in Ibem. What she hoped or feared, enjoyoJ or suffered, no one had any way of uncm-ing. It tuts the kindest thing to read nothing more than appeared on the surfhCi*. But at the end of that timo Payne Morie was tried and sentenced to confinement for life for participation in a daring train robbery. She simply sent the papers in which the matter was , recorded. Mr Tyron followed his telegram with all the speed possible. And bo Helen .Morse oaroe homo again, a statuesque shadow of herself— she and her baby, of Y/hotn the whole family made an object of worship, ' One more blow remained to fall. A year later the baby died. The copy of the newspaper that told its death, told too, the death of lia father, shot dead while trying to escape from the prison in which he was confined. Helen wore black after tbat — perhaps for her baby's death ; perhapa /or tno wan who bad treated her with a cruelty »be never told nor hinted at ; perhaps for herself, because she had outlived k»-ry thing. At any rate she weut in sombro garments, and no one questioned or remarked. And so up to this night— tho night of ber twenty-fifth birthday, wben they were all sitting about tho tea- table and talking of Harry'e prospects. Harry had bought a share in a Texas ranch, and he and hie partner were going to rough it alone in their oabin among the grata and sheep. Harry was enthusiastic, forestalling a little and unconsciously the obaraoter he wan to assume by-aod-by. "Now, Mr Micawber," Grace said, mockipßly. "M> ther, you ought to give him a tin plate and cup, and keep silver forks out of his sight. And, Harry, ytn'll have to out the acquaintance of boiled shirts, unless you boil thorn yourself, and then you'll have spasms over tbo starch." Helen looked up, and said in her slow, impassive nay : " Why couldn't I go and keep house for you, Hairy I " Sileuce fell about the table. The idea had never presented itself to one of them, but now all at once it did not seem so Impracticable. No fanoy of Helen's ever did for Helen. " I have seen something of the life," the said. "There is nothing in it that I cannot face. I do not mind tho solitude, and a houso is more comfortable with a woman in it." And bo it was settled. Sho wont übout her preparations with a straightforward unburrying readiness that admitted of little assistance. In ten days the brother and sister started, and the family felt somehow as if there had been a death, as well as a departure. In those days the railroad lines were everywhere incomplete. Helen, alighting from tho Blow train at its furthermost point of advance, found herself with 500 miles of stage-riding before her. On the second dßy, woll among the mountains, swinging down a long incline among the dark shadows of tho pines, there was a eudden abrupt report of firearms, a plunging, lurohing motion of the coaoh, a sudden uproar of voices without ; and Helen, crußhed down into ihe lower comer of the vehicle, with a smothered impression of several tons of Vjc*Kt«"-i5 humanity over end above her, ha mi "road-agents" uttered snrao--.Wiere <n the mass, and knew what ha I l then, '

One by ouo the passengers were extrioated. "There's a lady in there, a. voice . " We'll oome to her presently. Seat yourselves on that log, gentlemen.-; Here she Is ! Now, Madam,", offering q ; diamond-ringed white hand. . \Up rose HeleD, as little dishevelled as possible' for a woman to be under the oiroumstances, and was assisted up by a masked man with the easiest elegance of demeanour. "We are sorry to Inconvenience a lady," a quiet voice said, " but it is one of the unpleasant necessities of business. ; I suspeot we have made a mistake, We took this to be the paymaster s trip down to the mines." Helen bowed composedly, and took her seat beside the others, and then, under covor of half a dozen revolvers, ! thero was a rapid and exhaustive collection of valuables from the party. Helen was ndt molested ; no one spoke to her. In the lirat minute of the attaok someone had thrust a heavy wallet into her hand ; she held it oarelestly, with her handkerchief and the gloves she had taken of!, and a book, to whioh she had clung unconsciously during all the confusion. None of her belongings were touohed or looked at. " The Pine Valley coach will be along before morning. We can only aay that we are sorry for the blunder," and with a oourteous gesture of farewell to Helen, the party rode away. Both leaders lay dead in their traoks. Clearly there was nothing to do but to wait for the Pine Valley ooaoh. Helen was made comfortable with shawls and wraps on a bed of pine boughs, and fell asloep quietly under the stars. She did not wake when the ooaoh came up. " Now, Helen," a voice e»ld, and she opened her eyes and found Harry beside her, and with him a tall figure, dark in the starlight. "Another road agent P" sho said, half ssloop. Harry laughed. "We don't know what he may develop into. At present he is Frank Bronson." Helen rose to her feet, broad awake at onoe, , "You've had a stirring introduction to your new life," a pleasant voloo said, "and popular report makes you a heroine. Helen flushed a little resentfully. He might have been talking to a young girl of aixtcen in that voice of easy patronage. She was silent. Harry, used to that peculiarity, did not notice. Frank Bronson began again, " I'm afraid yon'U bo inconveniently crowded, Miss Tyron." "I bog your psrdon," in her slow, cold way, " I am Mrs Morse." They csme up just in the glaro of tho lamps. Bron son looked at her curiously. •'Hurry did not fell me," he said, with a sudden air of oonstrained bashfulness. A. 'V journey's end the passenger whoie pouHot-bnok she had saved took a great solitairo diamond off his Gnger. " A memento, Madam, simply a memento. The ring was in the wallet You saved mo 15,000d015. last night by your presenoo of mind." - ■ , ; She would not take it, bnt a few woeks later thore oamo to her through the post-office, the stono reset in another ring heavy enough for an armlet. She smiled, slippinu it over her slender finger. Then she met Branson's eyes watching her., "My good' deeds pursue nip. I am 'the heroine of Pint- Oulch.' Would you have sußpeoied it ? And thero is no address.", Sbe drop.psdjbe ring into his band and.walkod awiyt . They wers settled now in their new omo. A very sketchy lort of home it was, but enough* for the 'needs of a ,climate where a house 'is not needed tnuoh more or muoh oftener than an nmbrella. They had camped with the luxuries' of wall tents', while .the young men did their own building. , A sittingroom, two sleeping-rooms, and a kitoben —that wai all ; and the canvas of the tents made an awning under wblob a hammock might be swung. The new pine ,boards were aromatio in the hot sunshine; the conventional requirements of llvii g were reduced to tho very simplest form. ■■ It was a solitary life for a. woman. Ono of Harry's exporimontAl gangs of Chinese workers bad been detailed Jo kitohen duties, and tho poacu of th': house Iran profound. But Helen liked it. Dieamy and silent she wi.a still, but Suinehow little by little she seemed to come back toward human Hympatbies and interests. Half unconsciously her black garments wore laid aside as oppressive in tho beat of the lung bright days. The young men coining home at night found her whitd draped presenoe awaiting them. Harry thought without spokeu comment that something of ber girlhood as ho ramumbered her was coming back into her face and into tho rounding outlinos of her figure. Onoe or twice he heard an eobo of the old imperious inflections of speech, when something went wrong in the simple programmo of their house-keeping; once or twice she laughed aloud at some of Sam Lee's achievements. At last the old monotonous oslm was broken ; she had fits of depression, felt keenly in the sensitive household atmosphere. It waß the evening after the coming of the ring. Helen found herself at the very bottom of her regislor of feeling. They were all out of doors in the largestarred, dewless, south-western night. The two men ouUtrotohed on their blankets lay ulently smoking. Helen, swinging In her hammock, wss speeobless, too. By-and-by Harry asked her some t rival question, and the voice that answered him was hoarse with tears. He took no notioe, and a minute after she went into the house. Harry followed her, and oame back after a while, his own voice not over steady. " That girl has broken down at last. It'a the first time in years, and not easy years either. I doubt if anyone has teen her cry sinoo she oamo home." "Mrs Morse P" " Who blbb P " testily. " How I hato the name— l never oven think of it if I can holp it. You don't kuow the story P " " I have guessed— tint is, I mean I couldn't help knowing there was something painful. Mm Morse is young to bo a widow." "She is twenty- five," brusquely. " Helen always would have her own way. She had it when she was seventeen and married a scoundrel. He got a life sentence for train robbery, and was killed trying to make his escape from prison. She got the news the day her only child was buried." Bronnon gave a half groan, a sound almost like a sob as Trjon paused- In hiti blunt recital. " That was two years spo. She never whimpered under it, and to-ni^ht sho is crying as if she would kill herself. And I don't but she will. Think of a woman's lifo going to wreck like that." Whatever Bronson may have thought, he said nothing. Thore was a long silenco and much tobacco smoke. "Won't she take something P" h» said, hesitatingly, after a while. "A oup of tea or something. I'll broil a quail, if you like." " That's so," aocepting the suggestion cheerfully. Then they went out into Sam Loo's shining little kitchon and pottered about with tho best of intentions, but with much disturbance of small, jingling movables. Helm's crying was ovor now. She lay pi ouo oud nerveless with the exhaustion of much tears. She heard ['.<> uproar among the pots and pans, and wondertd faintly about it.

Harry opened the door, finally, with a laden tray in his hand. "I mado the tea," he explained breathlessly, "and Bronson cooked the bird, and we couldn't find the bread," «j Helen eat up and pushed the damp hair baok from her faoe. "Bronspn thought of it," he aaid persuasively, "I'd' try to eat a little." And Helen drank her tea and nibbled her bird with an uqsmillng sense of the uofitnesa of things when meat and drink were offered as a remedy for moh troubles as hen. But it did her good. She slept dreamlessly that night, and if she oatne to breakfast with heavy shadows under her ojes, the sad-lipped mouth had lost a little ef its rigid lines of pain. There had been an epldemlo of lawlessness through tho country for the last few weeks. The partioular manifestation of the disease was horsestealing. Now, to take a man's horse was generally worse — for the community—than taking his life. The The publio sense lot- justice did not always wait for the slow and rather uncertain aotion of law. Harry rode' awaj tbat evening without defining hig busiDosas, and Bronson found Helen alone in her hammock as usual. These two did not find talk Deoeeiary. They had reaoheo that grade of aoquainianoeship were lon« silences are unremarked. A soundless half hour pissed. Helen lay with half shut eyes watching the broad flood of sunset light die out in the sky. Bronson was smoking. When the cigar was quite done he rose deliberately and stood beside her. In tbo faint light, In her white gown, her twenty-five years rolled baok and left her in girlhood again. " Helen I " he said, touohing a fold of her drew with softly reverent hand. She looked up at him with an instant's surprise, then her eyes fell. " Forgive me," he said humbly, "I have not seen many women. When you came it was like a revelation. And I know that I love you." She opened her lips to speak, but he stopped hor. 11 1 know," he said. " Harry told me your story. Would you dare trust another man P " (To be continued.)